Jung and Parabola

[kac624]

I have just read a book titled "Practical Jung: Nuts and Bolts of Jungian Psychotherapy" by Harry A. Wilmer. Not a bad book, but in it was a passage from Jung about life and death, in which he mentions the word parabola. It is as follows:

Natural life is the nourishing soil of the soul. Anyone who fails to go along with life remains suspended, stiff and rigid in midair. That is why so many people get wooden in old age; they look back and cling to the past with a secret fear of death in their hearts. They withdraw from the life-process, at least psychologically, and concequently remain fixed like nostalgic pillars of salt, with vivid recollections of youth but no relation to the present. From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to DIE WITH LIFE. For in the secret hour of life's midday the parabola is reversed, death is born. The second half of life does not signify ascent, unfolding, increase, exuberance, but death, since the end is its goal. The negation of life's fulfilment is synonymous with the refusal to accept its ending. Both mean not wanting to live, and not wanting to live is identical with not wanting to die. Waxing and waning make one curve.

I found this relevant not only because Tool is known to belive in at least some of Jung's teachings, but because it discusses the role of our physical life and death, the timelessness of our souls, and how death is far from the end, which ties right into the lyrics of parabola. I am not sure if he means parabola as in the curved line, in which case i think he is refering to the cycle of life, in a circular sense, and how with death, you are born again, in a spiritual sense, or if he means it in some other way.
What do you think!?!?!?

[Brad Barker]

Your thoughts correspond with mine on this issue.

When I'm thinking parabola, I'm thinking of an inverted parabola.

-x^2

And the X-intercepts are the points of birth and death.

The stretching, shrinking, and vertical shift is entirely up to the individual.


Now, an inverted parabola would extend infintely downward, past the x-axis.

This would represent eternity. Oddly enough, eternity extends infinitely BEFORE birth and AFTER death. Although this concept is difficult to grasp, it corresponds with beliefs that time is infinite, having no beginning or end.

Well, that's my take.


(The parabola may reach its maximum y-value below the x-axis and eternity extends infinitely upward. This all depends on your viewpoint. Neither circumstance seems more preferable.)